Echoes of Dreamland
by Gabi Howard
Summary: He'd have liked a little more time with Mello, at least. As it was, he got another six months. A Never Let Me Go fusion fic.


**Distance Enchanted**

There've been murmurs for weeks now. How he's a weak one (unusual for Whammy's House donors), how he's not expected to make it past his second donation. They wonder if it's a fault with his Original, or that packet of cigarettes he'd had when he was fourteen, or That Boy. Apparently they were considering an end to the practice of donors choosing their carer, it was causing far too much trouble.

Matt honestly doesn't give a fuck. He'd have liked another smoke though, if just the one. Not like anyone wants his lungs anyway, is it? But no. Fucking standards. Chocolate biscuits really don't cut it when you're stuck in a hospital room waiting to complete. Especially when you're the last one left- apparently Linda died a week prior, and while Kathy's a lovely carer, he can't help but resent her for her looks. Just a bit. Especially since she'd been at Hailsham, where they'd loved art. Not like Whammy's. Whammy's hadn't known what to do with Linda. She'd pinned her hopes on Hailsham, even though she wasn't one of theirs. She'd been a good enough artist too.

He wonders sometimes if she'd found out, like he did, that the Gallery was a myth. That there were no deferrals after all. Hopes she didn't.

Which isn't to say that Whammy's disliked art, as such. They'd just had the ranking system instead, and based it on more scientific pursuits. Matt, with his ability to fix things, had fit right in (though he'd always wanted to have a crack at the computers. He understands why he couldn't now.)

Mello, though- he'd flourished. Same with Near, though he'd never commanded attention quite so well. Matt could still remember, clear as day, the time they'd been shown a map of the world and Mello had declared, with all the earnestness a five-year-old could muster, that he was going to visit every single country on it. The teachers had laughed and ruffled his hair and made him indignant, and later that night he'd hissed that he _would_ do it, he'd show them, _just you watch me, Matt_.

In hindsight, maybe he should have listened rather than falling asleep. It might have saved him waking up to an empty upper bunk ten years later. Then again, hindsight's 20/20 (and a tiny bit ironic when they've taken one of your eyes), and it's a moot point now anyway. He'd have liked a little more time with Mello, at least. As it was, he got another six months.

* * *

The day had started out like any other. Matt woke up at 7 o'clock (ish), hit his alarm until it stopped blaring and fell asleep for five minutes until it started up again. Then there was breakfast, clothes and the drive to the hospital, where he was handed his new file by the nurse. His next patient, donor 1238-M, had already donated a lung, and had requested a new carer after his last one failed to be present when he woke up from the operation.

So far, so normal, even if there was a warning that he might cause problems. Matt often got cases like this. He had a routine for them: he'd ask the patient's name, give them biscuits if they could digest them, as nice a drink as they could manage if not, and they'd talk. Again, if the patient could manage it. Some of them had lost too much by the time he was sent to them.

But this time, he was left perched on the edge of the rickety chair at the patient's bedside, gripping the arms of the chair like his life depended on it.

The patient- scarred and handcuffed to the bed but still oh-so-familiar- smiled. "Hello, Matt."

* * *

There were many homes for children like them, but Whammy's House was the first. It had been Quillsh Whammy, after all, who had first dreamt up the system after his wife died. He had been a scientist, specialising in cloning, and eventually perfected the technique of human cloning, which he'd decided to use for the benefit of mankind.

The first experiments had mixed results. Child L had largely been a success- there were some deformities, but nothing to damage his organs before they could be removed. Child B, though, had attacked the surgeons and almost killed one, whilst Child A had killed herself.

But while those early results had discouraged Whammy enough to give up on the project, his associates had refused to follow his lead, and eventually succeeded where he had failed. Through a mixture of careful genetic screening prior to conception and conditioning as the children grew up, they had produced the first batch of donors. Of course, there had been a huge debate over the ethics of the whole thing- and the detractors had never completely disappeared- but as life expectancy increased with donor usage (particularly in contrast with the Soviet Union and other Communist countries, where it was only available for the Party elites), so did acceptance of the practice. In England, the Donor Act was passed, rendering all donors legal property either of the institutions which brought them up or the hospital they were living in or working for, and that was that.

Not that donor children knew any of this. Their world encompassed their lessons, the houses they lived in, the grounds they played in, and a vague awareness of the countries in their geography books and, more importantly, the monsters that lay beyond the grounds.

"A little girl went over the fence once..."

"A little boy, going to get his football..."

"...she had your hair, I remember it clear as day..."

"...he used to sleep where you do now, Philip..."

"...and off she went- we tried to warn her, but..."

"...and he never came back."

"...all they found were her shoes. Terrible business, absolutely terrible. The poor girl."

Tell a story often enough, and it becomes fact. Tell it to small, imaginative children, and it will be embroidered, embellished, expanded on. Monsters grow teeth, gain claws, lose faces, merging into one hideous ugly mass of fear.

Only Mello ever went beyond the fence.

And there were monsters, as it turned out.

* * *

"Different to what we thought, though. The monsters there are people. The kids can go places, but there always has to be someone there to keep them away."

It was a week after Matt had become Mello's carer, and they were sitting by the window in the donors' lounge (the cuffs had come too; Mello wasn't getting up from that chair unless a security guard let him up). Mello had never had a problem with asthma before- none of them had- but now that he had only the one lung, going out while pollen levels were relatively high didn't seem to be much of an option. They'd spent a lot of the week in his room, just talking.

This was the first time Mello had talked about the time he'd been away, though. And curious as Matt was, there was something in his eyes and the hunch of his shoulders that made him hesitate to ask questions. Certainly about the monsters.

Instead- "So what are they like? Normal kids, I mean."

Mello shrugged. "I dunno. Not that different, really. Except they have parents. They like to complain about them, but... I dunno," he repeated. "It seemed nice. Having them." He looked down, fiddling with the loose strands of thread on the edge of the sofa. "And everyone's always talking about the future. Getting jobs. Getting married. Having kids of their own."

"...huh." Matt leaned forward, trying to process this. Obviously there were people doing all those things, else they wouldn't be here. It just seemed a bit removed from them. Probably because it was. "Must be nice."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Mello gives him a slightly confused look. "They just kept complaining."

* * *

After birth, donor children are placed in a secure facility, to be cared for by nurses. Matt still has vague memories of the place- whiteness, crying and a host of other children with hair just like his. What he remembers more strongly is the day he turned five, and was sent to Whammy's House. He'd met Mello then, and Mello pushed him down the steps. Except for that time they caught him smoking, he'd never seen the teachers so angry.

But that night, while he was sleeping in the infirmary to make sure nothing was wrong, Mello had snuck in, and after that they'd been inseparable. He'd heard people say he was Mello's shadow, and they weren't too far off the mark- he always trailed a little way behind him in classes, in races, in the rankings (which seemed so important, then so pointless until Matt realised why they might have needed a distraction. He wouldn't mind one now.) If anyone had ever wondered, given how much time he spent playing games, how he might have done if he'd put a little more effort into his obligatory pursuits, they never called him out on it. Mello certainly hadn't, and that was enough.

Really, if he looks back without thinking too hard, it was idyllic. They had food, and beds, and hours to do whatever they wanted in, even if most of them had used it for studying. There had been the fields, and the school song, and some of the teachers would give you a hug if you were upset. There were prizes for those higher up in the rankings- meaning that Matt got them pretty regularly- and the house had been beautiful. They'd never understood, then, why sometimes the younger teachers were found crying. Why all the staff looked at them so oddly at times.

Of course, it had all fallen apart the moment Mello left, but that was to be expected.

* * *

Matt sat back in his chair. "They complained? About what?"

"Their parents," Mello sneered. "That they didn't give them enough presents, or made them do too much work, or some shit."

"Maybe they did give them too much work," Matt offered, hesitant to speak so badly of people he'd never met. Whammy's had always taught them not to judge the people outside the system. "Or maybe there was something else."

Mello just shrugged again, and there was quiet for a while until Matt spoke up.

"Did you ever go, in the end? To all those countries, like you said you would."

"...yes."

"Which ones?"

"Hm? Oh. Um. India. India was beautiful. There were elephants there, and they worshipped cows. Whenever one lay down, all the cars had to stop for it."

Matt gives him a sceptical look. "You read that in that comic of yours, didn't you?"

"Did not."

"Did too."

* * *

They removed the cuffs after Mello's second donation left him in bed for almost a fortnight. It was a kidney this time, so it could have been worse, but it did make Matt realise just how little time they had left. Most people completed during their third, after all.

With that in mind, once Mello could walk again, Matt bundled him up and into the little car they'd given him when he became a carer, and drove him to a hill near the hospital. The sun was shining, and he made two trips up, the first with a blanket and the food, the second slower, with an arm around Mello's waist.

"Just like old days," Mello noted, though back when Whammy's had picnics, he'd been able to do a little more than nibble at the edges of the sandwiches with the most chocolate spread. He certainly wouldn't have been sitting down. And there wasn't a hill back then either, just a field.

But it was nice all the same. Especially when Mello rested his head on Matt's shoulder, and didn't push Matt away when he wrapped his arms around his waist in return.

* * *

"There were police at the border," Mello told him eventually. "They were everywhere, really. On the lookout for me, and a few others."

Matt nodded, feeling a bit awkward. "Did you, erm." He drew a finger down the side of his own face. "Get those-?"

"Yeah. No. Kind of." Mello swallowed, unconsciously touching the scars. "The house I was in caught fire, and they found me in the hospital. They almost ruled out my lungs for donation, but apparently there wasn't too much smoke inhalation."

"Oh," said Matt. Then, "they ruled mine out. I stole Roger's cigarettes, after- after you left."

Mello gives him a long look, his face unreadable. "Well. Good for you. Fight the power, and all that."

"The what?"

"Fight the power. It's... an expression normal kids use. Though what they've got to fight against, I can't imagine."

Matt swallowed. Remembered the cuffs they'd used to hold Mello down before his second donation. Silently agreed.

* * *

The only real problem before Mello left (aside from the regular checkups they used to have- those were horrible- and the overcooked vegetables they had to eat) had been puberty. Living in close quarters with fifty-nine other people who were all going through the same hormonal shifts as you was never going to be pleasant, but it was even less so when Matt realised he fancied boys. And one boy in particular.

Mello, on the other hand, seemed remarkably unaffected by the sudden awareness everyone else seemed to have of each other. His mood swings got a bit worse, granted, but other than that he was the same. Didn't seem interested in anyone. Which, Matt supposed, was only to be expected- he'd read in a book that only one in ten people liked their own gender, which left him with only one in twenty boys liking other boys. The odds were rather stacked against him there.

But it really didn't help that, for all his apparent lack of interest, Mello insisted on getting close to Matt. Physically, that was- hugging him on the rare occasions he beat Near, rugby-tackling him for no apparent reason in PE, even waltzing (albeit rather inexpertly) with him once, just because there had been a song playing somewhere and if Mello felt like doing something then Matt wasn't going to say no. It just got a bit awkward when Matt's body decided that any sort of physical contact was a reason to get excited, and there was only so many times he could run to the toilet before people got suspicious.

He did his best, though. And it was a lot better than any contact at all. He learnt that one quickly enough.

When Mello finally did kiss him, though, he hadn't known what to feel. Whether it was better, because Mello loved him, or worse, because Mello had just finished his third donation, and he was confined to his bed and living off machines and ever so slowly dying.

Either way, Matt cried afterwards. Mello held him carefully, stroked his hair, told him he loved him and always would.

'Always', as it turned out, was eighteen more days.

* * *

Matt had originally planned to leave the room. There was nothing to stop him going- they'd page him if something went wrong and they needed him to sign something- and he couldn't bear the idea of staying and wallowing in worry and suspended grief and what ifs. Mello probably wasn't going to survive anyway, almost no-one made it to their fifth donation.

But then again, this was Mello. Mello broke rules. Mello exasperated teachers and policemen and ran and ran and ran. And when he looked over, lying on the operating table, Matt pressed his face and hands to the glass of the observation room. _I'm here._

He couldn't go. Not then. Not when- for all his hopes- this might be the last time he ever saw that face. And as the anaesthetic slid into Mello's veins and those green eyes drooped shut, he stayed exactly where he was. When the nurse drew the blinds across, he watched his face through a crack in them, trying to ignore the surgeons buzzing around, working Mello's body like a piece of meat.

The alarms began after they took his stomach. Nurses rushed in to stabilise him- not so he'd live, just so they'd get the rest of him out while it was still fresh. They were efficient, if nothing else. It was a good thing they didn't want the skin on Mello's face. And still Matt stared, even as his vision was clouded by tears, as they rolled down his cheek and the glass to the floor.

Twelve minutes of alarms. Then the steady high pitch of completion. Matt ran from the hospital and threw up in the bushes behind the car park.

When he stood up, he wanted to scream and cry and rage at every fucking thing, each person around him, _everything_. Instead he went back inside and signed off Mello's paperwork.

A letter arrived the next week. Three months until his first donation.

By then, he was calm.


End file.
